


Stasis

by Roth1900



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Clara? Who's Clara?, Depression, Emotional Trauma, Erectile Dysfunction, Flashbacks, I do my research, I play with Arthur Conan Doyle titles too- So take that Gatiss, Impotence, M/M, Masturbation, PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Suicidal Thoughts, Too many feels, Work In Progress, angsty, some language, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-11-28 04:33:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/670310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roth1900/pseuds/Roth1900
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson returns from Afghanistan wounded and very nearly laid to waste by war. Unable to go back to the battlefield where he feels most at home, but just as unable to move forward under the weight of his own memories, life comes to a standstill until a new flatmate fires him off in a different and unexpected direction.</p>
<p>Set Before Series One. Sherlock will arrive in later chapters. I promise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue and Chapter One

Prologue:

_This is hopeless._

John watched his computer screen with bleary, unfocused eyes. The images of two women in the throes of orgasmic rapture did nothing for the dear Doctor Watson. Their hands were slick as they petted each other, moaning a rapturous cacophony of elation. Hands and mouths were touching and tasting, feeling and seeking out all the secrets each body may have been withholding.

If he was normal, if he was _right_ , he would be wanking furiously to the video that played such tantalizing images before him. John, however, was sitting at his computer, one hand resting on the mouse, the other waiting patiently on his inner thigh for a reaction from his body. None came.

John pursed his lips and bunched together his brow, concentrating, trying desperately to remember how it _used_ to happen so easily. Stimulus, response. He gripped himself, massaged, tried to get the blood to flow. Nothing. John set his jaw and clicked on a different video. 

A girl, no- a woman, easily in her thirties was wearing a schoolgirl uniform and had her hair tied back in pigtails. It was desperate. He clicked to another. And another. And another. He tried pumping at himself, squeezing, even shaking the damn thing just to get a reaction. Nothing. 

It had been nearly two months since his last erection. It was never something John had worried about before the war. They were regular, annoying even, and had at one time been a daily reminder of his virility. Not anymore. John was slumped in his chair with despair resting on his shoulders. As a doctor he knew what was happening, he had heard and even had given all the normal platitudes of erectile dysfunction. _It happens to a lot of guys. Don’t stress out about it, it will only make it worse. It’ll pass._

He cleared his browser history and closed his laptop. He’d try again tomorrow.

Chapter One.

He hated his flat. He hated his cane. He hated his shoulder. He hated his life. 

It was early morning when John Watson awoke to his dingy one room apartment. He was used to early mornings. He was used to waking up with a purpose. Now when he would wake for the day, John laid in his bed for hours on end. Not caring to bathe or eat or shower or come in contact with the human race. His little twin bed was safe. It was a cocoon of sorts from the stares and the questions. If he never stood up, he would never limp. If he never left the depressing little flat, he would never have to enter the more depressing, more confusing world outside. 

He rolled to one side, and looked across the dim room toward the kitchenette. It seemed so far away. After a few minutes, or maybe hours, John finally crossed the room, cane in hand, and began preparing breakfast. Well, a breakfast of sorts. His usual cup of tea and an apple was all he could be bothered to prepare. It was enough to wake himself up and to keep himself alive. And that was all he could do, all he cared to do, just survive one more day. 

In two hours he had an appointment with his therapist. He sighed, tossed away the mostly uneaten apple. He took a shower and dressed for the day with a malaise he’d never before felt. Another sweater, the same pair of pants. It would do. 

“How have you been John?”

“All right.”

She tapped her pen on her knee, waiting for a better answer. 

“Ahem, I’ve been all right, ya know? Get up, eat, sleep. I’m getting along.”

“And that’s enough for you?”

John gave a tight, smile. No. 

“Tell me about your morning. What did you do when you woke up?”

He narrowed his eyes trying to see her angle from this line of questioning. “I woke up. I laid in bed. Made breakfast. Normal stuff. Normal, _people_ stuff.” 

“What were you thinking about?”

_Afghanistan. My limp. My useless existence._ “I was thinking about getting a job in medicine again,” he said while fidgeting with his cane. 

She leaned back, studying him, her hands were curled up under her chin in thought. “That’s what you were thinking about last week. Do you think about that a lot? Or are you just saying what you think I want to hear?”

_Fuck._ He had said that last week. Amateur mistake. “I just... think about it a lot, I suppose.”

“Why don’t you trust me?” She was changing tactics on him.

“I don’t trust anyone. Getting shot kind of does that to people.” 

“I won’t shoot you, John.”

“So to speak,” he agreed, glaring at her with his head quirked to one side, challenging her. 

She was leaned forward again, elbows perched on her knees. “I am here to talk with you, John. To listen to you and give you some insight, but the only way I can do that is if you are honest with me. Telling me rehearsed answers is not doing anything but wasting your time. I want to help you, John.”

He breathed in stiffly. He was a soldier, he was trained out of emotional outbursts. It was hard for him to come to terms with his new life himself, let alone speak out loud to a near stranger about it. “I was thinking...” he trailed off. _I can’t believe I am doing this..._

He cleared his throat and decided it was best to get it over with. When the words came, they were rushed and emotionless. He thought he sounded like a person reading from a textbook in front of the entire class. “I was thinking about how nothing that I do matters anymore. I was thinking about how I used to be a doctor, and a Captain, and an athlete, and that all of it was a waste of my time and my life. I was thinking about what I would have done differently and all the things I will never be able to do again.” He swallowed roughly. “Then I ate an apple.” 

“And how did that make you feel?”

John raked his hand across his face. It was going to be a long session. 

The walk back from her office was about the only exercise John saw anymore. It was familiar and not a tremendously long walk from his flat. He would take a cab when he could afford it and sometimes when he couldn’t afford it, if he was having a bad enough day. He used to hate cabs. He thought they were expensive and a lazy way to get around. The tube was out of the question now, with all the people and their sympathetic looks and offers of assistance. He would refuse their pity politely all the while cursing them in his mind. They would try to help him down the stairs or offer him their seats in the cars. He had been one of those people once. Now he detested them.

Sometimes he would go out of his way after his therapy sessions, on the good days. He would stroll past Saint Bart’s on occasion, or stop at a cafe he had frequented as a young man. Happy memories of pretty girls and rambunctious friends would flood him in those places, erasing the gloom of his mood and the click of his cane.

He had even run into some people he had known before the war. A girl at the cafe who still called him Johnny had given him a coffee on the house and sat with him. She flirted, like old times. Asked him if he still had the uniform. Had told him how she always had a thing for men in uniforms. He promised he’d come back to see her. 

“I’d like that,” she had said smiling. 

John had smiled too, ever charming, “I would say I’d take you dancing...” 

She giggled. 

It had been nice. He considered seeing her again, fulfilling that promise, but there was more wrong with him than a bum leg and a stiff shoulder. 

He decided to take the cab. He just wanted to be home. 

The bedsit was quiet, it was always quiet. To a man who had seen more than his fair share of excitement, John imagined it was supposed to be comforting, some simple place with four silent walls that were free from danger. Simple. Quiet. Comfortable. John could almost laugh at how wrong the place felt to him, how foreign and miserable. He had spent much of his adult life hoofing an four stone pack through a desert full of enemies. Home was not a quiet place in the outskirts of London, it was a battlefield. 

He fell roughly into his desk chair and opened up his laptop. A few keystrokes and he was online. _Right, bank account._ He checked his funds to find that he had nearly three pounds fifty to get him through the next two days. Thankfully, he was current on his rent, and had at least a few not-quite-rotten apples left. He could survive. He huffed out a laugh of disbelief. _Three pounds, fifty._

Eighty seven pound, seventy five pence. That was his worth. Every friday like clockwork, his pittance was given from the organization that had taken his life from him. At one point in time, his career with the Fusiliers was everything to him. He woke up, proud and patient, knowing that Private Watson would someday become Second Lieutenant Watson, then later Captain Watson. He had given years to them. Years. Time he would never recoup, memories he could never erase, and wounds, it seemed, that would never heal. 

He had wanted to be a soldier like his father, a lifer. He supposed he was in a sense. He had spent his childhood playing soldier with his mates from the neighborhood. He studied war histories and strategies of the the military when not occupied with getting his doctorate. He had gone to battle. Had been deployed twice, in fact. And though he breathed, he knew his life, the life he had loved, was over. He had wanted to retire from the military a respected officer, old and proud, not invalided, young, and broken. He had worked, lived, and breathed the Fifth Fusiliers, and what did it get him? 

His computer screen was glaringly bright as he read the numbers again. Three pound fifty pence was not even enough for a sodding sandwich and chips. His existence thus far had been dedicated to the military, and he couldn’t even buy a fucking hot lunch. 

He limped over to the bed and curled in on himself. He was just going to sleep. Two days wasn’t so terribly far away.

A few hours, a bout of crying, and a fitful nap later, John awoke to the message alert tone on his mobile. Clara. 

8:04 Clara: Harry is being a twat, and I miss you. Can I come by? 

John looked around, the beige bedsit was tidy only because he owned next to nothing and hardly moved out of the bed. 

8:05 John: I warn you, twattiness runs in the family.

8:06 Clara: I’m on my way. Need anything?

Money. A job. A functioning body. 

8:06 John: Nothing comes to mind. See you in a bit.

He sent the last text with a grim sort of smile. He loved Clara, she was his sister’s wife, and was probably the best thing about his sister. She was funny, smart, and very sweet. He resented Harry for landing this wonderful woman, while John floundered in the dating world. Flings he could manage, relationships, well, they weren’t really his area. 

He straightened up the covers on his bed and his rumpled clothes and started a kettle. It didn’t take long for her to arrive.

“John boy!” She said, near reverential. 

“Hey there, Clara Bear-a,” he said with a quiet grin. They had greeted each other that way for years now, and no matter his mood, just saying those words made him feel instantly better. His Clara Beara. She looked stunning, as usual. She was wearing a simple gray suit that was tailored to her petite form exquisitely. _Sister in law, John. Back off._

She dropped the couple of bags she had been carrying and took him into a warm hug. “It’s so nice to know you are just a text message away, instead of half the world.” He didn’t respond, just held her closely for a moment, enjoying the feel of actual, human contact while it lasted. She leaned back and took his face in her hands. “You are a sight for sore eyes, sir.”

“Just, for your own sake, don’t look too closely,” he teased. She kissed his cheek and bent down to retrieve the bags she had dropped. “What is all this anyway? I told you not to bring anything.”

She had an impish smile on her lips, “Actually, you said you couldn’t _think_ of anything you needed, not that you didn’t need anything. And anyway, I wanted food and I didn’t know what you had.” She opened the refrigerator door to reveal a mostly molded over piece of cheese and a sad bag of apples. “Oh, and I guess it’s a good thing I did.”

He reddened and pawed at the back of his neck bashfully, “Yeah, I haven’t been to the shop lately. Sorry.” 

Clara flipped her hair over her shoulder and winked at John, telling him with just that little gesture that it was okay. She pulled out a few things from the Tesco bags to put in the fridge. Eggs, jam, and milk in the refrigerator, and a carton of ice cream in the freezer. “For later.” 

“You didn’t have to do that. Really.”

She started stocking his cupboard next. “And you didn’t have to let me come over, so we’re even, okay?” Tea, biscuits, bread, pasta. She was a god send.

“So what has she done this time?” John walked over to the counter and began pouring out two steaming cups of tea. He fidgeted with the handles and his cane, cursing under his breath when he spilled a bit on his hand. Clara was patient, and thankfully didn’t offer any sympathetic gestures to help him. He resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to make two trips. He grabbed her cup first and hobbled over to her, trying not to spill any more. Ah, the joys of learning your limits.

She took the cup and sat down on his neatly made bed with the sleeve of biscuits she’d brought over. “Oh the usual Harry bullshit. Lying, drinking, making me feel guilty about it...” Clara’s eyes were unfocused as she dipped an edge of biscuit into her teacup. “I just needed to get away.”

He sat at his desk chair with his cuppa. “Sounds like Harry, all right.” 

“I don’t know what do about her.” 

John didn’t either. 

Clara sighed and downed the rest of her tea in one gulp. “I don’t want to think about it anymore. I needed a distraction and good company, and what good does it do to just bring her up all the time?” Her face brightened considerably when she continued, pushing thoughts of Harry to the back of her mind. “Tell me something about you. What have you been doing since you’ve gotten back?” 

John’s cup stilled mid-air before he rested it back down on the desk. “Oh, I... well, nothing much.” He offered her a tight smile.

“Any girlfriends?” She bounced her eyebrows.

John shook his head. 

“Boyfriends?” She tried lightening the mood.

“Ah ha, um, no. No, but thank you,” he raised his cup in cheers, “for giving me something to bring up at my next appointment.” He gulped down the hot liquid a little too quickly.

“Appointment?” Clara laughed a little, confused. “What kind of an appointment would you...? Oh.” Realization hit her, and thankfully she felt abashed enough to stop talking. John could feel his hand tremble a bit and flexed it around the teacup as much as he could. “Right, none of my business, sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. I--” He concentrated at putting the cup down and started massaging the tremor out of his hand. “I’m seeing a therapist. Only way to keep my disability pension. It’s not that I need to see her, you know. It’s just, the physical therapy didn’t help my leg and I can’t work with it like it is. So... I just, need the money is all.” He had never told anyone about his therapist before, or his needing money. Doctors were supposed to be rich, weren’t they?

“Oh...” the room was silent then. Neither of them knowing what exactly to say or do. “Well, is she any good?”

John gestured to the cane leaning on the desk. “You tell me.” She laughed a little, pleased that the tension was slowly vacating. “No, she’s fine. She’s nice. Not all bad to look at for three hours a week.”

“Oh? Is she single?” Clara teased.

John couldn’t help but look up at that, concern etched in his features. “Are you?” 

Clara’s eyes dropped to her empty tea cup, “Sorry, that was supposed to be funny. I forget that she’s your sister...”

“Is it that bad?”

“It’s not good,” she conceded. “When you introduced me to her, Harry was a different person. I fell in love with her straight away.”

“I remember. That’s when I stopped bringing pretty girls ‘round for holidays.” He meant for it to be funny, but it sounded bitter in his ears.

“She was just so exciting, she was magnetic, and I just... I fell for it. For everything. And you were so good to me. You were so caring and gentle and I should have given us more time-” her voice was wavering tears glistening behind her eyes.

“Hey now, none of that.” He leaned forward and stroked a thumb over her knee. It was meant to be comforting. “Don’t think like that. You love Harry, remember? You fell in love with her the first time you saw her. It wasn’t like that for us.” 

She flung her head back, trying to keep the tears off her cheeks. “I wish I would have fallen in love with you.”

“Me too,” his thumb was still rubbing across her knee, meaning something more now.

She shuddered and moved away from his hand. “Maybe I should go.” She swiped a hand under her eyes to catch any stray tears. “Harry’ll worry.” Clara stood up, and put her purse strap over her shoulder resolutely. 

John stood up then too, leaning a little too heavily on the cane, wishing he wasn’t. He dug in his trouser pocket. “Let me at least pay you for the shopping.” 

“No. That’s not necessary, John. Really.”

“I don’t want charity.” She made to speak again but he interrupted, “I’m paying you, I insist.” He dug out what few coins he had left in his pocket. It wasn’t nearly enough to cover the food she’d brought. He poked it around with his other hand, cane tucked under his arm. He felt less than human. “It’s, well... I’m a little shy, but here.” He held out the eighty seven pence to her with pleading eyes, _don’t make me beg._ She was good enough to take it without a hesitation and without counting it.

“Thank you, John... Listen, I,” she paused for just a second, continuing with her eyes closed, “I won’t say anything to Harry about you going to therapy.”

The smile he offered in thanks didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“I figure that’s your business, you know?”

He nodded, embarrassed, but ever polite.

“And I won’t tell her about the cane or anything.”

His brow twitched at the word cane.

She looked him over wistfully. “What a pair we make, John Watson. When did we get to be such messes?” She shook her head with a wry smile. “I came over here to cheer you up, and keep me from thinking about Harry. Instead I put my foot in my mouth and conspire to lie to my wife. I guess I’m not very good at this.” 

John smiled warmly back at her. “Well, you’re not wrong.” 

She swatted him on the shoulder at that. “Wanker.”

He hummed a laugh.

“You really should come visit us sometime. I’m sure Harry would want to see you. I’d like to see you more.”

John shook his head. He had zero interest in seeing his drunk of a sister who was married to the girl of his dreams. “She knows where to find me. Not that she would. Not unless she had something to gain from it,” he said, a little too clipped. 

She sighed, “That’s Harriet.”

“That’s Harriet,” he agreed.

They hugged one last time before she left. John lingered a little longer than a brother-in-law probably should. 

With two cups in the sink and the lights switched off the for the night, John made it to bed with a groan. He went through the motions of stretching his leg out like the physical therapist had recommended, and laid back against the pillows with one thought in his mind. 

Clara.

God was she a sight. Curvy, brunette, petite, and gorgeous. 

John closed his eyes. He remembered how she felt in those hugs, the way her hair had flown over a shoulder when she winked at him, the tight fitting trousers that clung to her when she was putting groceries away. She had been in his bed even. Well, sitting on his bed, but John had made due with much less than that in the past.

There was a stirring behind his navel. A clench and a pulse of desire. _Clara._ They had gone out a time or two in college. They shared a few plates of food, a few mostly innocent kisses. John had even managed a proper feel of her once, the night before he’d introduced her to Harry. He redirected his thoughts to when they were together, he grasped his fledgling erection tightly, willing it to stay. He thought about how her lips had felt on his cheek, and how they would feel against the head of his cock instead. Another victorious pulse of blood firmed him further. 

_Oh thank God, it’s working._

John licked his palm with a thick smear of saliva and replaced it as quickly as he could. He gave a few steady, firm pumps over the hard, fleshy iron under his fist. He thought about Clara on his bed. He thought about her legs being wrapped around him. He thought about the way his hand would trail up her thigh. 

His hand. A flash of the war, his hand pressed firmly over a thigh gushing blood from a bullet wound. 

_No, no, not now..._

He tried again. Clara. Lips. Thighs. Moaning.

Soldiers, men so young, moaning on the battlefield, flesh torn, bones exposed, the quick rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire.

He growled in frustration, pushing those thoughts as far away from Clara as he could. Her hair, that dark long hair! He grasped a hold of the thought like a drowning man to a raft. Her hair would tickle his chest as she rode him. Her head and neck curled forward before being thrown back in guttural rapture.

He remembered peeling off a helmet from an infantryman. His scalp had come off with a slurp and all that was left on his head was a skull and a halo of blood soaked hair. He remembered the horrified scream and his own gasps of revulsion.

John was crying then, quaking with sobs. His erection had flagged, had become a memory more distant than those of the war.


	2. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took a bit to upload. Hope it was worth the wait. :)

It was still dark outside when John woke up. His right wrist was thrown sullenly over his forehead. He had salt and self-hatred stained on his cheeks from crying himself to sleep the night before. His left hand was curled over the scar on his chest in a tight ball. It was numb in the morning, just like the rest of him. Most days he didn’t wake so gently, usually he was gripped with fear, jolting upright, covered in sweat, breaths coming in jagged rasps. The quiet mornings were almost worse though, they always followed difficult days; at least with night terrors, the days were less traumatic. _Half of one..._ John thought. 

He stared at the ceiling until dawn broke. He watched the daylight move across the ceiling hazily, highlighting the cracks, cobwebs, and disrepair of his apartment. He could just as easily describe himself with those words. He’d been up less than an hour and it already felt like a long day. He had to get up, remove himself from the funk he was working into. It was too early for him to be this deep in the hole, but after the night he had, it wasn’t surprising.

He had wrestled with images of war until he found himself in a fitful sleep. Hours stretched on and on as thoughts of bodies and gore haunted his dreams of Clara. He hadn’t dreamt of her for years, but seeing her the night before had stirred something in him he thought he had tamped down long ago. She was as beautiful now as she had been all those years ago. It hurt him to know how radiant and young she remained while he transformed into a shrivelled version of himself. It was a hard thing to face, and it was not something he was prepared to do in the least. Any kind of improvement he had made with Ella vanished in a single night. He was as broken and sore as he had been upon first arrival in London, and it hurt him more than the bullet to his chest.

He took a deep breath and swung his legs over the side of the bed, he refused to lay there a minute longer, stewing in his own depression. The first few steps of the day were always the worst. He stretched his hip and knee every morning, followed doctors orders to the tee, and still those preliminary, cautious morning steps were fuelled by pain and stiffness. This morning was especially bad. The ache of his heart surpassing that of his body. It was brutal. 

He nearly fell on his way to the kitchen, nearly dropped his tea cup on the way back to his desk, and nearly shot the wall out of frustration when he realized he’d left the gas on in the kitchen. 

Frustration. 

The word slammed into John like a freight train. He was overcome by it. In earlier years he would have worked out all his pent up energy and anger at a gym or on a football pitch, but now? Now, he just ground his teeth, set his stiff upper lip, and counted from a hundred and back again until it passed. If it passed. 

He was actually looking forward to his next appointment with Ella. He needed something to do, and as sad a fact as it was, the only thing he did anymore was see a therapist. _God, help me,_ he thought with a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head. Monday wasn’t so far away.

“I’m sorry, a ‘what’ exactly?” he must have heard her wrong.

“A blog.”

“A blog?” 

“Yes.”

“Like an internet blog?” He said incredulously.

“Yes, John. An internet blog.”

He adjusted in the seat, “Why on Earth would you think I’d want to write a blog?”

Ella ticked her head to one side. “Why do you think?” It could have sounded snotty if she were anyone else, but she had that way about her that blurred the line between condescension and concern.

John was prepared to come back with a snarky answer, because you like to torture me?, but her mantra of honesty and trust was slowly chipping at the wall he had built around himself. He took a deep breath and looked out the window for a few moments alternately trying to answer her question and wondering why he had been looking forward to this at all. 

He knew he was clipped with Ella, never really gave her anything of substance to work with, maybe that was her reasoning. “I’m not as open as you’d like? Maybe you think if I write it down I’ll be more honest? It would make it less, I dunno, real, I suppose... if I don’t have to hear myself say it?”

“What else?”

He leaned his cane against his chair and rubbed his palms on the tops of his thighs, trying to hide the tremor that was manifesting under this line of questioning. “I... I don’t know.” 

She leaned forward. “You are a doctor, John.”

 _I was a doctor._ His mind retaliated bitterly though his face remained impassive.

“You made a career of healing others. Don’t you think a forum where you can help people needing some support will make you feel more validated?”

“It would make me feel more exposed!” He blurted out, eyes fiery. 

She hardly blinked at his outburst. “Tell me more about that.”

He shifted his gaze, his eyes cooling quickly. He’d revealed a little more with that statement than he’d intended. _Great._ He knew it would come to this. _Give her an inch and she’ll take a mile._ He looked around the oddly shaped room then, feeling exposed already. “It is your job to make people talk, right? Make them tell you their secrets?” 

He knew she wanted his answer to be (oh, what was that charming phrase she used?) an “I”-statement, but he didn’t want the attention on him. He wanted to make it about her. He hated talking about himself, and if she was going to get peeved at him, so what? He knew he was distancing himself on purpose, and that it was one of the shittier ways he could have responded (short of asking if Accredited Emotional Shit-Starter was listed on her CV), but John didn’t really care in that moment.

“Not always. Some people don’t have secrets--”

“Everyone has secrets,” he said quietly, accusation tinting his words. 

She watched him for a few beats and let the words he’d said sink in. “Do you believe that?”

He swallowed. He thought about Clara and how honest she had been with him. He thought about the young men in his company who were all bright eyes and open smiles. He thought about himself before the war. Maybe there were people who lived their lives in the open. He had once, a lifetime ago. 

“John? Why does talking like this make you feel exposed?”

He shook himself from his reverie. “I, well, as a Captain you can’t... I mean, you aren’t supposed to...” he felt his mouth go dry. _Show weakness. Isn’t that what this is? Weakness?_ He tried to ask her with his eyes. Tried to convey it all without so much as a word.

“I’ll make you a deal. If you start a blog, update it twice a week, write down whatever it is that happens to you, how you react, how you feel... I’ll cut out a session.”

His guard was up and his tremor was begging to come back, there had to be a catch. “I don’t feel comfortable telling one person what’s going on, and you expect me to broadcast it over the internet to the entire world instead?”

“It can be a private blog, until you’re ready.”

“And if I’m never ready?”

She shrugged and leaned back in her chair. “I won’t force you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

He licked his lips. “So what, this is supposed to be like homework, I guess?”

She smiled at the simplicity, “Yes and no. More like a journal. You won’t be graded.”

He couldn’t believe he was considering this. “What would I write about?”

“You tell me.”

He was flooded with flashes of the war, the way his leg buckled on the stairs leading up to his bedsit, his sad attempts at masturbating to Clara, the way he walked around Saint Bart’s when he was feeling nostalgic, the sounds of his cane following him, the nightmares, the memories, the longing to go back. “Nothing comes to mind.”

She scratched a note in her pad of paper. John tried to read it, but she was holding it at the perfect angle to make that impossible. John wondered if that was something they taught psychiatrists at university. 

“Some of my clients find it helpful. All I am asking is for you to give it a try, you might just like it. Two weeks. Four posts. That’s all I’m asking.”

John pointedly avoided his laptop that night. He pushed away thoughts of writing and filled his mind with the mundanity of television and laundry. He didn’t often adjourn to the common areas of the complex where he lived, but even that was better than a room with an expectant laptop staring at him, waiting. 

He had packed his laundry in his fusilier’s duffel and made his way down to the basement shakily. He took the stairs slowly, not used to the lopsided canter of using his cane in a stairwell. He wished the damn thing came with instructions at times, knowing there had to be a better way to walk down the stairs than the lean-step-pray method he was employing. 

He breathed a sigh of relief at the last step, he had fallen once his first week out of the hospital. An elderly tenant had helped him up. It took all of John’s strength to thank the man with a steady voice and not to cry on his shoulder, or beat him senseless for seeing him at a time of such weakness. John remembered days when he wasn’t on edge. When he wasn’t volleying between rage and sorrow, violence and tears. His heart thudded deeply in his chest at the thought of never being so carefree ever again.

He was fastidious in separating his laundry. He took the time to read each care instructions label and set it into the appropriate pile. He wanted to drag this particularly dull chore out for as long as he could. Laundry was safe. The afternoons were quiet in the basement of his complex. It was too early for most people to be off work or home from school, and too late for any self- respecting stay-at-homes to finally be getting around to doing laundry. He was, as usual, alone.

After the first load was moved over, John sat himself down in an old chair near the corner. His head was empty, body numb. The whirring of the mechanized washer and dryer along with the flicker of the television’s poor signal had put him in a trance of sorts. His memories tumbled and fluffed along with the clothes in the dryer, none of them wrinkling into despair or heating up beyond comfort. It was more therapeutic than his therapy sessions, truth be told.

 _Therapy._ John’s mind jittered to a halt. He couldn’t believe that his life seemed to revolve around therapy sessions and half told truths. She asked too many questions, demanded too much of him. She wanted him to talk about the war, about his childhood, about his future, and all John wanted to do was, well, anything but. He just wanted to... again, his mind stopped dead. What?

The dryer rang out, startling him, making him nearly jump out of his skin to be honest. When all was dried, folded, and tucked back into his rucksack he started on his way back up to his beige room. He put the clothes away, just as carefully as he had sorted them. He glanced to his wrist watch. It had been two hours. There was still time to write... but no, he did not want to face the idea Ella had implanted. A blog. Honestly. 

Then it was Wednesday.

“Have you written anything yet?” 

John flexed his hand around his cane handle. “No.” 

“Why?” She looked interested, not just academically.

He half heartedly crooked one side of his mouth up. “I was busy.” It sounded more like a question than a statement. She waited for him to elaborate. “I was doing laundry.”

She quirked up an eyebrow. He gave nothing back. “It will help, John.”

“I’m not much of a writer.” It wasn’t much of an excuse.

“You’re educated though. And when I can get you to, you speak quite well. I’m sure you have stories to tell...” She left the floor open for him, but he didn’t take the bait. 

He was lying to her, of course. He had written before. He’d enjoyed it, actually he’d excelled at it. ...but a blog? How would he even start?

John guffawed at the mere thought. No, he wasn’t going to entertain the idea. That was absurd. Not feasible in the least. He set to doing the dishes, well, the dish. A single tea cup was hardly a big enough chore to distract him. He took a shower, he made his bed, re-read that day’s newspaper, but still the thought was in his mind. 

His fingers fidgeted, and against his better judgement John sat down at his desk. It had been nearly a week and he hadn’t so much as cracked open his laptop. When he finally did, he couldn’t believe what he saw.

Thirty eight emails. _Thirty. Eight._

“What the bloody,” he clicked the icon, “oh.” 

_Harry Watson Wednesday 2:18 am_  
 _Harry Watson Tuesday 11:33 pm_  
 _Harry Watson Tuesday 6:45 pm_  
 _Harry Watson Tuesday 8:21 am_  
 _Harry Watson Monday 10:46 pm_  
... 

_Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck,_ he groaned internally. He grabbed his phone from the edge of his desk. Dead. God only knew how many texts were queued up. He’d have to top up before he’d even read half of them, he guessed. 

He ran his hand over his face, he knew how this was going to be. Rambling, drunken rants from his sister. God, how much did Clara tell her? 

John was tempted to shut the laptop, convince himself that he hadn’t just seen a litany of what was sure to be furious emails from his sister, and go to bed. Surely nightmares were better than what he was about to face. _Coward._ His mind accused. 

A slick slurping noise from sucking his teeth in determination set John to his task. He had to read them. At least, he had to try. He clicked on the first email in his queue. 

 

 _Harry Watson Wednesday 2:18 am_  
Just fucking ANSWER ALREADY!

 _Harry Watson Tuesday 11:33 pm_  
Goddamit John! At least have the balls to email me if you won’t call. I bet she’s there rright now. ARE YOU HAVING A GOOD LAUGH!? that’s all you ever do you know that you just cant help but mkae me feell like the idiot sibling can you? Thanks a lot for being suhc a fanatastic brother, you ASSHOLE!

 _Harry Watson Tuesday 6:45 pm_  
It’s too quiet here... I’m going insane. Come over. If you gave a shit about anyone other than yourself you would be here all ready.

 _Harry Watson Tuesday 8:21 am_  
You two deserve each other.

John kept clicking through the emails, each one more accusatory than the last. Finally he got to the end:

 _Harry Watson Saturday 10:11pm_  
Did you fuck her, John? did you fuck MY WIFE!? Who the hell even cares. It’s no wonder you won’t answer your fucking mobile! . That’s right, I know what you two did yesterday so don’t try to deny it. its so like you to think you can get away with it.... like you are above the rest of us... you never gave a shit about me and now I can see that you never fucking will. People like you never change.

John closed his eyes. God he hated himself. There was a pit in his stomach as he clicked on the reply button. What was he supposed to say? 

_John Watson Wednesday 6:22pm_  
Harry,  
I haven’t checked my email in a few days and I was not expecting this when I did. I haven’t been ignoring you. No matter how much I might want to, I would never ignore you. You’re my sister. Nothing happened between me and Clara. She came over. She left. That’s all. Did you leave Clara? Why would you do that? She loves you, Harry. She told me that, and I believe her. _(Though John didn’t know how or why she would.)_ I hope you are doing well, I really do, but

His cursor flashed at the last word, anticipating things even he didn’t know to say. He read the email six times. _But what?_ He had plenty that he wanted to say for sure, but calling her a fool and an alcoholic wasn’t going to get him anywhere. His hands hovered over the keyboard when a sharp banging sounded at his door. 

“OPEN YOUR DOOR YOU FUCKING COWARD!” 

The slamming of her fist on his door frame seemed to shake the walls. To John, it sounded like gunfire. 

“IS SHE IN THERE!? JOHN!? IS SHE IN THERE WITH YOU!?” 

John was frozen for a second. He couldn’t think, could barely move. He knew he had to let her in, she was going to see him, was going to hate him and judge him and yell in his face. 

“DON’T THINK I WON’T DO THIS THROUGH THE DOOR!” 

_Dammit._ He grabbed his cane and hurried to her, holding the doorknob in a fierce grip. “Keep your voice down!” 

“Or what?” She asked, her sneer snaking past the lock and hitting him squarely in the face.

“I haven’t talked to you in months and this is how you’re acting?” He was whispering through the jamb now, hoping she would follow suit and lower her volume in turn.

He could actually hear her rolling her eyes. “It’s not like I haven’t tried to get in touch with you, you PRICK!”

“Harry, nothing happened.” He tilted his head down against the cheap panel of wood, there was a sudden clammy sheen of sweat on his brow and he was almost shaking, his body reacting in some indefinable place between fear and anger. 

She slammed her fist just where his head was resting on the door. “I will break this fucking door down, John, so help me god!” 

“JUST LET HER IN!” Someone shouted from down the hall. 

“Thank you!” She returned with a bite. 

“I’m going to unlock the door, but I want you to calm down, okay?” He twisted the bolt slowly, letting it grind instead of click. 

Harry pushed the door open in a swift throw as soon as John unlocked it. He had to jump back to miss being cracked in the face, and he was unsteady enough without having to jump backwards.

“Where have you been!” She was on top of him, prodding him in the chest, pushing him back in a flurry of words. “Did you think I’d let you ignore me? Did you think she wouldn’t tell me where you live!? What were you doing, hm? Hiding from me?” 

She looked crazed, her eyes were wild, hair unkempt, breath reeking of alcohol and not of toothpaste. She was more of a mess than he was. 

“Harry! HARRY!” He wasn’t used to walking backward, and was dangerously close to falling.

She pushed him then. “Did you sleep with her, John!?” He fell roughly against his desk, his back hitting the sharp edge, making his vision blur. She was standing over him now, not relenting her tirade. “Did you fuck her, JOHN!? Did you fuck my WIFE!?” 

He tried to stand up, but his back was searing with pain, his leg was throbbing, and his cane was out of reach. He half lifted himself and grabbed her wrist, pulling her down to the floor with him. She thudded roughly against the floorboards, crying freely now, her mascara running in rivulets down her dampened cheeks. 

He shook her shoulders, used to her crying jags and drama after the years they spent together as children. “I didn’t sleep with her!” He threw her back. “God dammit, Harriet. I would never do that, and you know it!” 

Her sobbing muted her as she asked, “what did you do? What did you do?” It was a more of a moan than a question.

He pulled her against his chest, trying to soothe her by rubbing wide, slow circles over her back. “Nothing. We didn’t do anything.” He sushed her sobbings and held her for a few minutes until the angry drunk Harry pushed through the sadness and exhaustion. 

“Liar! You, LIAR!” She was alternately beating his chest with balled fists and slapping his face open-handed. She was surprisingly strong and steady for someone with such an elevated blood alcohol content. 

He grabbed her wrists, cursing under his breath at her. “Harry! Calm down!” He pushed her back so she was lying on the carpet, kicking her legs and trying desperately to free arms.

She shrieked and screamed even louder at being confined. John had been a quick study in hand to hand combat, so controlling her flailing proved to be fairly easy. He made quick work of shuffling her wrists into one of his hands and clamping his other hand over her mouth to shut her up. “Now you listen, when I let you go, no more screaming and no more hitting. Clara and I talked about how _in love_ with you she is,” he said bitterly, “we had a cup of tea each, and she left, all right? Nod if you understand.”

Her breath was hot and wet against his hand as she nodded. 

“Will you behave?”

She nodded again.

He tentatively removed his hand from her mouth. She, not as tentatively, spat directly in John's face.

She wasn’t Harriet, his brooding, alcoholic sister any longer; she was transformed into an insurgent he’d restrained in Afghanistan months ago who was yelling in Dari and spitting in his face. He sat back suddenly, releasing her to get better leverage. His teeth were gritted, his eyes unfocused as he saw the sand and shabby street urchins of the Afghan city around him. His hand flew, landing a solid back-handed blow before he could come to his senses. 

She stopped fighting him then, stopped yelling, and instead just laid there in fear. Her eyes quivered and hands were trembling. He reached for his gun, but returned empty handed. A whoosh of realization, like a wave breaking on the shore, brought him back to London. He blinked hard, a sudden blinding headache and the high pitched ringing of tinnitus returned with him. Then he saw his sister. A fresh, red hand-shaped blemish was blooming across her face. 

_Oh god, what have I done._ He scrambled back away from her as quickly as possible. His trembling hand covered his mouth as he stared at her. He’d never hit her. He never would hit her. “Harriet--” he reached toward her. She gasped and shuddered, pulling away from him. “God, I’m so sorry. I...” 

Her hand touched her tender cheek. “Stay away from me, John.” Her tears were real this time, not induced by alcohol and rage, now they were tears fuelled by pain and fear. Tears John had caused. “Stay away from me, and you stay away from her.” 

He didn’t have to ask who she’d meant. He knew. He nodded weakly, not trusting himself any longer. They stayed on the floor, neither of them willing or able to move, both in shock. Their breaths were ragged and shaky, neither of them capable of anything but replaying what had just happened. 

He tried to explain, “I thought you were-”

“Don’t.”

Again, “Harry I-”

“Don’t!” She interrupted sharply. Harry sniffled in deeply and made to stand up. “Just... don’t.”

He pursed his lips and screwed his eyebrows together, trying to hold back a flood of his own tears. He never liked his sister, but he truly would never have harmed her. His words were choked and followed her retreating form quiveringly, “I’m so sorry.” 

Harry didn’t so much as look back at him. She just left. She didn’t even bother closing the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....oh snap! What did you think? I'd love to know! :D


	3. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I took so long to update! I am going to try and put up another chapter today or tomorrow. Also, I recommend reading the last bit of chapter two first as this starts immediately where the last left off.

John dragged himself closer to his entryway, shutting the door with just the tips of his fingers. His limbs were splayed out with his face buried in the dingy carpet. He laid there for hours, unable to move. He recognized at times that he was crying, or sleeping, or staring into nothingness, but he mostly didn’t stay focused enough to know what was happening. He floated in and out of awareness. It was like he was watching himself from across the room, then replaying their argument, then he was in Afghanistan, then back on the floor sobbing into a musty carpet. 

John finally righted himself when his physical pain overtook the emotional. He hobbled into the kitchen and drank handfuls of water from the tap. His free hand gripped at the edge of the sink hard enough his knuckles were shining white. If John’s left shoulder hadn’t atrophied so badly in convalescence, he would have ripped the sink from the wall with a primal scream of embittered loathing. 

The anger quickly slid aside and gave way to utter exhaustion. A shadow crossed his eyes. _I should have died in Kandahar._ He tried to shrug out of his thoughts. There had to be a distraction. As much as he wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep, he knew that he shouldn’t. He knew what dreams would be waiting for him.

He scanned his apartment, hoping to find something to occupy him instead. His laptop was still sitting open on his desk. He could write. That blog would at least give him something to do, might even keep him busy for hours. John sat at his desk, he was dubious for a moment before waking up his screen. 

_Harry,_  
 _I haven’t checked my email for a few days..._ he moved as quickly as he could to close the offensive bastard with a snap. He didn't want to see it, to be reminded of his sister, of her emails, of the look of fear that clouded her eyes. He threw open his desk drawer, desperate to find a place to hide the laptop, and stalled when he saw his gun looking up at him. 

Waiting for him. 

With shaking hands, he reached out for it, the computer a long forgotten memory. His gun, well, his gun was _a distraction._ It was Army issued and used more often than he would care to remember. The instrument was perfectly cleaned though, could pass for new if you didn’t know where to look. John knew where, and remembered every bullet that ever rang out from the chamber. John relished in the weight of it. He could tell it was loaded. Ready. 

It would be easy. John thought, idly. It would be quick. If ever he needed it, this little piece of ultimate control would be waiting for him. He stroked his thumb across the grip like an adult might worry at the hem of their favorite blanket as a child. It was his safety blanket now, it pushed all the monsters deep under the bed, and far back into closets. 

He pushed the safety aside. There was a rush of adrenaline that accompanied the sound. _Distraction. Right._  
...

"Have you tried any writing yet?"

A queer smile haunted his lips. "I... ahem, yeah, I wrote." 

Ella studied him, accepting it for truth, she continued, "how did that make you feel?"

John fidgeted with an invisible speck of lint at his sleeve. "Good."

"Good. So what did you write about?" Her eyes were soft and encouraging.

The back of John's hand felt raw from where he'd hit his sister, his ears were ringing from the memories of Afghanistan, and he could practically taste the metal of his gun barrel in his mouth. "I wrote my," he hesitated at the truth, _my suicide note_ , then barreled on with, "my military history. You know, deployments, promotions... that kind of thing. Things I was proud of. An ego boost, ya know?"

She scribbled on her notepad. He craned his neck, pretending to pop it for cover, but then John was never good at being subtle. She smiled at her paper, seeming to know what John was up to, while underlining a few words. “They’re just my notes. Nothing to worry about,” she had said this to him before. “So...” she put her notepad aside, face down, “an ego boost. Tell me about that.”

His forehead was suddenly very itchy, “It seemed like a good idea. Try to focus on the positive, right?” 

“So your military career is a positive?”

“Most of it,” he said he wryly replied.

“What do you consider a negative then?” 

He shifted back in his seat, leaning on his good hip. “I-I don’t know...” he swallowed the word ‘everything’ back as quickly as he could.

“How is your love life, John?” Ella dove right in.

John nearly sputtered, his eyebrows jumping into his hairline. “M-my what?”

“You have been home nearly three months now. Have you met anyone?”

The old John's pride twitched somewhere deep inside himself. “No.”

“Have you wanted to?”

He swallowed, frowning away the truth, “No.”

Her fingers twitched toward her notebook, but left it where it lay. “Why is that, do you think?”

“I just haven’t.” She watched him grow more and more uncomfortable. “What? What d'you want me to say?” He barked, looking thoroughly offended.

She didn't back down from his flash of anger. “I want you to tell me the truth,” she said calmly.

"Why? I thought we were talking about that _blog_ ," he spat.

"We are. You told me that what you wrote was an ‘ego boost’. Many men link their self-worth to their sexuality. So tell me about that. It isn’t something you’ve mentioned before so let’s explore it."

John had his hand balled against his lips. She had him pinned. Either he could confess his impotence, or confess a suicide note. Neither option seemed appealing to him, but only one would land him in 48 hour psych watch well away from sharp objects.

"John?" 

His jaw flexed for a few beats. “I’ve not... I mean, I haven’t-” his throat was dry. He licked his lips, and pressed out the creases of his trousers. Softly, “I can’t...” He shook his head, halting abruptly. John _wanted_ to tell her the truth, honestly he did, but blurting out that his dick no longer worked just wasn’t going to happen, “I can’t imagine myself being good for anyone right now, all right?”

“Why?”

“I’m in therapy. You tell me why.” John knew it was a rather cheap deflection, but anything to eat up time at this point was worth saying.

She grabbed her notebook and leaned back in her seat. She wrote a single word down. “What do you think I just wrote?”

 _Impotent._ “I don’t know.”

“Just try to guess. Just think of it like a game.”

He shrugged, “Lonely?” No, he knew better than that, but it would take her off course, he hoped.

“No... want to try again?”

He didn’t try again. Instead, John closed his eyes in a slow, fluttering, _why am I saying this_ blink, and wearily confessed, “I have nightmares. I walk with a cane. I can barely afford my rent. Getting my kit off isn't exactly a priority at the moment.” 

It _was_ a priority though. He was Three Continents Watson for god’s sake, and with a libido normally in hyperdrive his acute lack of desire was most certainly a priority; one that caused him no small amount of anxiety.

John left Ella's office as an exhausted mess. Today was a cab day, for sure. The ride home was divided between watching carefree civilians on the sidewalks and bus stops laugh and smile; and making a mental list of all the preparations he needed to make before _going west_.

The note was written, the gun was loaded, and clothing was picked out. He knew the place, his bathtub, for easy clean up (though, John thought idly, he could use some heavy tarp for splatter). He knew the positioning of the gun, up through the roof of the mouth, not back through the throat. He knew when he’d do it, late in the morning, so he could be tucked well away before any school children returned home. If John was going to kill himself, he was going to do it politely.

Three blocks from his flat he saw a gathering of police cars and harried officers going in and out of a walk up with grim determination. It might have been one of those suicides, the ones that had plagued the papers over the last few weeks. He then thought of what his own crime scene would look like. He hated the thought of bothering the Yard, but what choice did he have? 

He was at the stoplight watching them and found his mind drifting to what they could be doing inside, what case they were now trying to solve, whether it was in fact another of the suicides, or whether it was something much more mundane than that. He never would have guessed his future flatmate was currently standing a mere streets width away, shouting abuse at a detective inspector, and certainly wouldn't have thought a green ladder owned by the victim’s brother would be the linchpin to the case.

John arrived home, paid his driver, and made it up his stairs without incident. He fixed himself a cup of tea and plate of biscuits with care and sidelong amusement. Knowing it was going to be one of his last teas, John found it comforting and enjoyable, all the little steps and preparations. He seated himself at his desk, and set to work on another note, this one he wrote to Ella. 

No, it wasn’t her fault. Yes, she was a very good therapist. _Some people,_ you see, _are beyond help. I’m sorry I wasn’t as open as you would have liked._ He wrote. _Don’t worry about me, I’m happier now._ Etc. etc. 

It was another comfort to John. Writing out his thoughts and feelings came easier to him than expressing them out loud, not that he would ever admit that to his therapist. He felt a weight drift off his shoulders as he typed away at his apologies and insistence that this was his own decision, that nothing could have made him better or happier than his own death. 

He started a third letter, this one to his friend who died in Afghanistan. He envied him. Dying a hero. Having loved ones who could be proud of the way their son, brother, lover, friend, had given up his life for them, for their country, for the ideals of peace and honor. He told him how much he wished he could have joined him that day, not saved him, not imprisoned him in the world where John was currently trapped, but joined him. He would have let many more infantrymen die if he had known the true horror of what saving them meant. 

His fingers glided across the keys with precision and purpose. He felt good. He felt right. He felt in those moments of honesty and clarity like a man saved from eternal damnation. This was his purpose now. Death was his salvation.

Just as his fingers were primed for the next sentence, the one where he would ask forgiveness from the men he had helped to send home, invalided and disgraced- he heard a peculiar dinging from beneath his desk. Upon looking, he saw a flashing light. It wasn’t easy for him, but he managed to get on his hands and knees and paw around under the set of drawers until he felt something small, rectangular, and sleek. 

It was a cell phone. _For Harry. Love, Clara._ A tidal wave of images of his sister thrashing at him hit him as though he were the shore. It must have fallen from her pocket unnoticed. 

John didn’t have a nice phone, his was simple, plain, and perfunctory, much like its owner. It took him a few frustrating moments to get the damned thing to turn on. When the screen mercifully lit John found seven unread text messages, two voice mails, and a flashing red battery icon waiting for him.

 _Right._

By some miracle, John’s charger was a perfect fit. 

He held the phone for a moment, silently apologizing to his sister for what must have been the thousandth time before he set it aside and began typing an email.

It was a good excuse if nothing else for her to come see him for one last goodbye. 

_Harry, I have your phone. Please come pick it up. We need to talk. -John_

John sent the message and waited, hoping his sister would quickly respond. Luck, it would seem, was on John’s side that evening.

_Keep it. I don’t want to see it or you._

A fresh sting of guilt hit him square in the gut. He nearly responded, begging her to at least let him explain what had happened to him, both that night and in the war. He needed to have her listen, to have her forgive him for what he had done... but he knew his sister. He knew she could hardly cope with her own demons let alone his. He knew she was stubborn and once she said a thing, it was nearly impossible for her to take it back. 

He sighed and eyed the phone warily. It was his now. The gift from Clara that should have his name engraved alongside hers with declarations of love was now in his possession, like a constant reminder of the woman who did not love him, and the sister he had hurt. 

Harry had never set a password or entry code of any sort. If he were a man of deduction, he would have known that a drunk would never make access to it a complicated process. It would be easy enough to change the number. He figured the punishment would be apt, for him to carry around a token of his impotence and betrayal in his pocket for his last few days. Yes, it would do well. 

His finger hesitated over the message icon. He really shouldn’t read them, it would be an invasion of her privacy, but John was curious. 

_Please, don’t leave me. I love you. We can work it out._   
_I’ve bought us a bottle of wine, come home so we can talk._   
_I know these last few months haven’t been easy, but I would never cheat on you, and certainly not with John. I love you too much for that. Please respond._   
_He isn’t the same, Harry, and even if he were I still wouldn’t do anything with him. I don’t love him, I love you._   
_I know you don’t trust him Harry, and I know why, but he is harmless._   
_Look, I told him I wouldn’t say anything, but he’s... not right. He’s sick. Worse than we thought. I just wanted to check on him, Harry, please believe me._   
_He isn’t the same, he looks so much older now, especially with that cane. I wouldn’t do anything with him even if I wanted to, okay? Now please come home. I miss you. I’ll never see him again if that’s what it takes._

John felt sick. His stomach dropped out of him the instant his eyes scanned over the messages. She would never do this to him, betray him, insult him, threaten to leave him. She was his Clara. She was sweet and warm, she cared about him. No... John swallowed back the bubble that had settled in his throat, no this was not his Clara any longer. 

This new thing was the product of his sister. The distorted version of Clara’s innocent self after years of emotional abuse at the hands of a drunk. This was Harry’s fault. It had to be. 

She had warped the only good and decent person in the entire Watson family with her demons and abuse. If she had come over, John was certain he’d hit her again, with his full bloody heart in it this time. Every ounce of guilt was replaced with violent, virulent rage. Clara’s views of Harry could be tainted, but never how Clara saw John. He imagined the things Harry must have told her. The actual stories of his past blended effortlessly with lies and hyperbolation to make him into some sub-human thing. 

He tensed his jaw and breathed through his nose for a few beats. He tried calming himself down and pushing away the violent thoughts that now plagued him. _He isn’t the same, Harry... He’s sick... I don’t love him... I’ll never see him again..._

He was sick, wasn’t he? Imagining fucking his own sister in law, hitting his sister, writing suicide notes, tramping along with a cane, unable to use his hand. He was sick, and John was sick of it.

In a flurry of movements, he threw open the drawer next to him and grabbed his gun. He clamped his teeth around it. _Just do it._ His mind screamed. _Just do it!_ His bit at the metal, touched the tip of the gun to the roof of his mouth, and leaned forward to prepare himself, but his finger hesitated and he gagged on the barrel before spitting it out. 

He set himself up again, with just as much determination. He pinched his eyes closed, he wouldn’t even feel it, it would just be over. Again, his finger stalled on the trigger, and he gagged around the gun in his mouth a second time. Frustrated, he threw it back into the drawer and slammed it shut.

His hand tremored enough that it seemed to shake his entire body. The shaky fingers left uneven trails through his hair. He gripped hard, trying to make the tremors stop. The pain of hair being pulled from the root soothed him in a moment, and all his violence turned to wracking sobs. He couldn’t even kill himself. What good is a suicide note to a man who could not force himself to pull the trigger. He had more preparations to make, it seemed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a little longer to update than intended. I decided to go through and make it fit in better with the first few minutes of episode 1, series 1 thanks to the lovely and charming spfpf. :) Any errors you find here, ideas for later chapters, or tips you may have for me will be thoroughly considered, trust me. Enjoy!

John quietly cleaned his apartment over the weekend. He picked up the detritus of his hermit-like existence and scrubbed the walls and windows to a military shine. The floor was vacuumed, the bed was made daily. He dutifully packed things away into boxes to make the whole process easier on everyone else involved. He made a mental note to check the price of tile repair/replacement so he could leave a check in case there was any damage.

On Sunday, when all was good and sorted in the physical world, John set to working in the digital one. He knew he needed to set up his blog. It would be an elegant end, he thought, leaving the series of letters online for them to find. 

He struggled to find a suitable name for his blog. _The Dying Doctor_ was by far the lamest idea he had followed by _The Man With The Twisted Limp_ , _My Last Bow_ , and _The Blanched Soldier_. No. It needed something less flashy. Something with a bit more John to it. He was straightforward, clean, and simple, and his blog should reflect that. _The Personal Blog of Dr. John H. Watson_. How much more personal was a series of suicide notes, really? 

He fidgeted with the colors of the banner. Tan was too bland, though it harkened back to his days in the Afghan desert. Blood Red was a bit too on the nose, even for a website dedicated to his own bloody demise. Yellow was too chipper. Green was too calm. Black was too stark.

Blue. He tilted his head and considered it thoughtfully. It certainly suited him and had always been a favorite color of his. He liked the somber subtlety of the color’s inherent connotation with depression, and it was not nearly as obvious or juvenile as the other colors he had tried. It stood boldly against the screen with finality and purpose. Yes, it would do.

John went to bed that night feeling good. Perhaps tomorrow he would even awake with a freshness about him, a sense of purpose that he had been sorely missing. He had hope for the first time in a long time that things were going to be okay. He was going to die tomorrow, after all... so things must not be that bad. 

In war, there was a question that lingered in the minds of soldiers. What would you do if you died tomorrow? 

John had always said he’d get blitzed or find a girl or blow all of his money, or something juvenile like that. He always tried to keep it light and to make them laugh. “Women and booze, gentlemen. If I’m going out, it’ll be in a blaze of glory!” 

Tomorrow, John Watson would be found dead in a bathtub; and for all the answers to that question which he had thought to himself and said to his soldiers all those months ago, the reality of the situation was John, alone, in his flat, attempting to have one last wank, and falling into a fitful sleep. _A blaze of glory, right._.

The boom an explosion, the quick rattle of artillery, the shouts from his infantry, a man kicking down a boarded over door, and the images of a hundred other days of battle jarred John awake with a gasp. He had been convinced, no, lulled, into thinking that this night, this final nìght, would be peaceful. He was wrong. It had been one of the worst he could remember. How could he have been so foolish? 

He tried to hold it in, to breathe through the pain, but it was too much for the soldier. When he slumped down into his sheets, he couldn’t stop the flood that overtook him. _One night._ All he had been wanting was _one. night._

When he finally righted himself on the bed, he was tense. His sleep had not been peaceful, and his day would be hard... but finally, finally it would be over. In a matter of hours he would never feel the torment and horror of his mind again. Instead, his mind would be displayed on his bathroom wall, all the torments of war would be dispelled from a hole in the back of his skull. 

John looked to where his solution was waiting for him in the top drawer of his desk. His cane, that embodiment of his lost pride was casually leaning there, leering at him. He blinked franticly and pursed his lips in determination. So long as he could manage to pull the trigger, everything would be fine.

After his shower John put on his robe, made his tea, grabbed his apple, and sat down at his desk. The gun watched him in anticipation from the drawer as he lifted his laptop and silently set to his task. He would update the blog just once before his meeting with Ella, and after, well, the three letters he had written were waiting patiently in a folder on his desktop.

The cursor blinked at him. John blinked back. His hands uncurled from under his chin and rested on the keys. 

_My name is John Watson. I was once a Captain with the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, and a doctor in Her Majesty’s Army. I was invalided from a bullet wound to my shoulder. This blog was intended as a coping mechanism to help me adjust to my new-found civilian life. Invalided. Coping. Adjusting. Civilian. One paragraph in, and all these things I would never have said out loud._   
_-John_

Later that day, Ella asked him about the blog again. When he answered her he had been telling the truth, but crying wolf so often had trained her not to believe him. 

“You haven’t written a word have you?” 

Well he certainly wasn’t going to tell her now. “You just wrote still has trust issues.”

“And you read my writing upside down. You see what I mean?” 

He might have forgotten how to laugh since the war, but even he had to admit that was pretty funny. He quirked his lip up in a quick smirk which quickly faded when she jumped right back in with platitudes. He distantly listened, having heard it all before. “...writing a blog about everything that happens to you will honestly help you.”

“Nothing happens to me,” but she had seen past all that.

“Nothing?” 

“Nothing good,” he said, his jaw set in a hard line.

Ella leaned further in, “You can tell me anything, John. Anything at all. Good or bad. I’d like to hear it.”

“Good or bad,” he repeated with wry humor edging his voice. 

She stayed quiet. 

John puffed his chest in a quick, shaky breath, "I saw my sisters ex-wife recently, who happens to be my ex-girlfriend. You tell me,” he heaved another breath and let it out heartily, “good or bad?”

She had her head quirked to one side, her usually impassive face was now full of interest. “Tell me about her.”

And he did, he told her things he swore he would never tell a soul. He detailed everything that happened with Clara in college, how he’d felt betrayed, the remarkably inappropriate drunken toast he’d made at their wedding, and even the times he had fantasized of Clara _with_ Harry when he was in Afghanistan. He tried to convince himself then, and his therapist now, that it was brought on by the worry that he was never coming home... and if they were together, well, at least they would do all right without him. 

“Do you still think about that? Not being around for them?”

“Harry doesn’t even want me around alive. ...and Clara... well, I think she’s in the same camp now.” The irony of her switching camps for Harry was not lost on either John nor Ella.

“How does that make you feel?”

“At first, surprised... but, it’s inevitable where Harry and Clara are concerned. Harry is manipulation embodied, and Clara... well, I’d say she’s a pushover but that implies you’d have to push.” 

Ella smiled a little tensely, “When did they split? It must have been recently.”

“Why must it have been recently?” He asked, dubiously.

Ella clicked her pen once and rested it on her paper. She knew he would clam up even more if she started ticking down notes again. “This is the most talkative you’ve been is all, something must have happened to bring it out of you.”

John could practically hear her trying to uncover something much deeper than a simple answer to the question. “I’m...” he faltered, not sure why he was feeling the urge to lie, “I’m not sure.”

“Recently though?” 

“Recently enough. Does it matter?” 

“It must... if you’re bringing it up.”

John was quiet, suddenly feeling like he’d told her too much. He didn’t like it when he didn’t know where the questioning was going. He felt suddenly anxious and fidgeted a little in his seat.

“Did it happen since our last appointment?”

“No...no,” he lied, and stretched his trembling hand and casually as he could manage, “it was months ago. Three months, give or take.” 

“Are you interested in her?” She asked, clinically. His skin crawled with apprehension, like everything was closing in around him.

“It wouldn’t matter if I was,” his voice was slightly strangled and sounded like an echo in his ears.

“Why?”

“Because she’s a faggot!” He snapped, in a voice not entirely his own. His vision was hazy for a moment and ears ringing. _Just like with Harry._ He licked his lips, tried to calm down, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She clicked her pen. “I didn’t mean to- I was just--- what are you writing? Look I said I’m sorry-”

Ella’s pen dashed across her notepad, and John’s pulse dashed under his skin. Every scratch of her pen sounded like the grinding metal of a gun’s hammer being cocked back.

“Stop, I didn’t mean it--” he had his hair balled in his fists, “Stop it. Stop Writing!” His voice boomed against the walls. He was standing then, his eyes unfocused. “STOP!” He held his cane high like a weapon, and was panting from the sudden spike in adrenaline. 

Ella’s pen stalled on the paper as she looked up at him. Softly, but with a dominant tinge to her she voiced the word, “John.”

He looked crazed, eyes wide, chest heaving, heart practically pounding out of his chest.

“John!” She tried again, more sharply. 

He came back to himself and swung the cane down at his side loosely, catching it before it fell away from him completely. First Harry, and now he’d nearly hit Ella. Things were getting worse, he was losing control. Ella was talking to him about some nonsense about anxiety induced outbursts, but all John could hear was a voice in his mind repeating: _It has to be today._

It was unseasonably warm when John left his appointment. He roughly shed the sweater and threw it away in the nearest bin to her office. He wasn’t going to need it ever again, anyway. He nearly pitched the jacket too. He clicked his way toward the road, considering a taxi, but no; if this was going to be his last day on earth, he would at least take one last walk past Bart's. 

He was clicking down the path at quite a good pace. He knew he had to get home reasonably quickly if he wanted it all to go off without a hitch. He still had a few things to prepare. He’d have to post the blog entries, set up the tarp, send his email to Ella (with an ardent apology at his outburst), and probably take a few deep breaths before getting on with it. 

He was lost in thought when a familiar voice from another time in his life brightly called to him. “John? John Watson?”

He turned as sharply as he could manage. Was that...?

“Stamford, Mike Stamford. We were at Bart’s together.”

“Yes, sorry, yes, Mike...Hello, hi...” god was it awkward.

“I know I got fat.” Mike was never one for beating around the bush. “I thought you were abroad somewhere getting shot at! What happened?”

An echo of gunfire as his eyes fluttered for a second at the obviousness of his question, “I got shot.”

He took a second then barrelled on like he hadn’t just placed his overly large foot in his mouth, “Oh! Yeah, yeah, right,” he trailed off not sure how to continue. “Well let me buy you a coffee! Least I can do for an old friend fight’n for our Queen, yeah? I’d love to catch up.” 

John licked his teeth and sharply looked around the quad, “No, no... I’d hate to be a bother.”

“Oh, no! Please, I insist. The wife has me on a new diet. I’ll take any excuse to get one. Please, you’d be doing me a favor.” His flushed cheeks and wide, innocent eyes hadn’t changed that much since university, and apparently neither had his sweet tooth.

John squinted one eye shut. “You got the caramel with an extra shot, right?”

Mike chuckled, chuffed that he’d remembered. “Yeah, but I don’t have to order the _extra shot_ this time, know what I mean? Ha ha,” he said and jostled John’s rib with an elbow. Really, if it were anyone else he wouldn’t have smiled... but Mike was one of those rare people that was just so good natured that even inappropriate jokes seemed funny. “How’d you remember that anyway?”

“You got that everyday twice a day for six years. Hard not to remember it, actually.”

“Harder not to order it. Come on, she’ll understand if I ran into an old friend and insisted on us getting a drink...” Mike looked like a hopeful puppy, and it was hard for John to resist.

“I’ve got a... thing,” John looked at his watch for extra emphasis.

“To-go cups?”

“Um... yes. Yes. Sure. Why not.”

The walk to the shop was silent save for Mike’s huffing along and John’s click-step-click. Mike got his usual, John a black coffee. The girl he had ran into at his last venture in wasn’t around this time. He felt a pang somewhere in his gut at knowing he’d never see her again. 

Mike graciously paid for the drinks and walked a ways with his old study mate. Mike greedily sipped at his cup of sugar with a dash of coffee. John, bless him, tried once while walking and burned the ever loving shit out of himself as it spilled down his front. 

“Ow, shit...” 

“C’mon then, let’s sit. Coffee with a friend is better when seated... and anyway I’m huffing like an old dog.”

John silently thanked him for not pointing out the fact that he couldn’t walk with a cane and drink a coffee without needing a sippy cup. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

Eventually, as all conversations inevitably did, Mike asked him about the war. “So... what was it like over there? As bad as they say?”

John, clipped in response said, “Well, Mike, it was war. I can’t imagine it being worse.” Something about that kind of response always got people to shut up, but John didn’t want Mike to shut up. He immediately felt guilty about it. He cleared his throat, “So... still at Bart’s then?”

The conversation ticked on a bit more pleasantly after that, finding it’s rhythm between old friends. Mike joked about his job, John smiled appreciatively at the effort. There was mention of Harry, which caused only a tensed jaw and slight tremor, a victory in John’s book. Then there was a mention of flat shares.

“Come on... who would want me for a flatmate?” Mike laughed, which stepped on the tattered flag of his ego just a bit. “What?”

“Well, you’re the second person to say that to me today.” 

John was just trying to be polite when he asked about this mysterious other man looking for a roommate, but his voice betrayed him in a bout of sincerity he was not expecting to feel, let alone display, “Who was the first?”

“An acquaintance of mine. Hang’s around Bart’s in the mortuary, he doesn’t work there or anything.”

“Sounds normal, then,” John quipped, blinking a few times too many.

Mike smiled, “Normal might be a stretch, but he’s a lot of fun after you get to know him. I don’t know him well, but he seems alright. Kinda... spiky, but harmless I think.” John took a longer sip from his coffee than necessary. “He’s smart, works with the police, handsome too if you’re into that sort of thing.”

“No!” John sounded offended, “No, I’m not.” 

“It’s fine if you are... as far as I can tell he is... so if that bothers you...?”

He thought about how he’d practically screamed the word faggot at his session with Ella. “No, no, my sister... you know.” 

“Right! Sorry, I’d forgotten.” Mike checked his watch, “I have to be getting back soon for afternoon classes... you’re welcome to join. He might still be in the lab if you want to meet him.”

John checked his watch in turn. Half two... Even if he ran home (which was laughable to even suggest) he couldn’t get everything he’d wanted to do done and still have time for the deed. John had made a very particular plan, and he wasn’t about to have a sloppy suicide after all the time he’d spent preparing.

“Uh... yeah... sure. What’s the harm, right?”


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this one took SO LONG to get up (no pun intended). I feel like I have written this about thirty times and I still feel unsatisfied. I hope I didn't linger too long on their meeting in Barts, and I hope it makes sense. (I honestly cannot read it one more time, I will go CRAZY!) ...so yeah... let me know what you think. I have all the other re-writes, if you'd like me to post, let me know!

John had thought that stepping through the doors of Saint Bart’s would be a comfort to him. It was the place he had the happiest memories of his life. He had met friends there, developed relationships, exceeded expectations (his own as well as those of his teachers), and learned the trade he had loved. He thought that going back there would remind him of his happy young self.

It did remind him of that actually, and the stark contrast he found between the old John Watson and the new was a black and white image he had left as a negative in the sleeve for good reason. It was not something he wanted to see develop in the dark room of his mind, but as he trod down the halls that once had held such hope for him, he could only see the place as one of regret. 

All the years that stretched out from those early days of his adult life danced before him. He passed the bench where he had read between classes, saw doors that he'd passed though a thousand times, the bathroom where he'd thrown up after his first cadaver autopsy (which had more to do with the alcohol he'd imbibed the night before), there were a hundred nooks and crannies with a hundred memories attached to each. 

Now as he walked through the halls of the teaching hospital, he realized that those memories were like ghosts to him. He could see himself, young and fit, purposefully passing through passageways in every pane of glass he passed. They were reflections though, intangible and fleeting. The glittering frivolity and hope he had held in those halls was being trampled upon by a bum leg and a cane.

This place he had once called home had no place for him now. He was an antique set awkwardly in a modern showroom. He looked around corners on their trek to the labs, here he had met Stamford, and there he’d stayed up all night studying for a physiology exam. There were new students in those corners now, making their own memories. People he didn’t know, people who didn’t know him. He was once John Watson, the up-and-coming doctor who was a magician with a scalpel. Now he was just an old man with a baggage cart of regret. Suddenly the jibe Stamford had made earlier rung true with John. Bright young things, how he hated them. 

“The labs are just through here,” Mike needlessly reminded John, who had spent much of his twenties in those rooms.

He walked through the door Mike held open for him and took a glance around the lab. John had snogged a graduate student senseless on the shorter table toward the back, he had worked on his doctoral thesis with his bum on the ground and back firmly against the cabinets just to the right of where he stood, and he had decided on joining the army while seated by the centrifuge near the southern set of doors. Over time, the chairs had been replaced, the tables had been refinished, and the equipment had been updated, but this lab would always house those memories for John.

“Bit different from my day,” he said with a hint of melancholia.

“Oh, you have no idea,” Stamford conceded with a chuckle as he walked deeper into the lab.

And John didn’t. He had no idea. When he stepped over the threshold of Bart’s Lab, he thought he was walking in to find a man in need of a flatmate. What he found, however, was a nutter with a microscope in need of a lesson in social graces.

Whoever this person was, he was rude, impertinent, careless, and arrogant. 

“Afghanistan or Iraq?” He asked with a quiet confidence.

John had never felt grateful toward his cane before, but if he hadn’t been leaning against it, he was sure he would have been thrown from the shockwaves those words caused.

No one, not a single casual stranger, had ever so much as made mention of the war. Yes, there was Ella who forced him to talk about it, and Mike who always seemed to blurt out anything that crossed his mind; but as for the rest of the world, well... not even Clara or Harry had brought it up, and they _knew him._

He involuntarily quirked his head at the words, like rolling them around in the other direction would make more sense of them. “Sorry?”

And he’d repeated it, all balls and brass, he repeated it. “Which was it, Afghanistan or Iraq?” Even though the man was currently typing out a text message to god-knows-who, John felt like every ounce of the other man’s attention was focused solely on him.

There was an odd bubble in his throat that he had to swallow back, “Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you--” but just as he had begun to open up, Sherlock ripped the attention he was affording him away. He had focused everything on a young woman in a lab coat who was bringing him coffee. _Maybe Mike was wrong about him being gay?_ But he wasn’t flirting with her, John realized, he was insulting her.

“How do you feel about the violin?” He asked suddenly.

John quirked his head over his shoulder, watching the young woman leave the lab. For a second, he flashed in his mind what the old John would have done, how he would have approached her (Sorry about him, he doesn’t know how to act when a beautiful woman enters a room... coffee?), and she would have agreed back then, when he was young and dashing. She was gone now, though, and the question was just hanging out in the open... what was it he said?

“I play the violin, sometimes I don’t talk for days on end. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.” John fought the urge to guffaw. Violins and moody silence weren’t really on par with violent rages and suicidal impulses. 

And who had said anything about flatmates, anyway?

“I did,” he said smugly.

The other man had gingerly shrugged on his coat while he explained all of the deductions he had made about why this ‘old friend of Mike’s, John Watson’ was there. He summed up everything with unapologetic ease. “...it wasn’t a difficult leap.” 

And it _was_ obvious, not a difficult leap in the least, when John considered it. He had had an overwhelming urge to punch him and shake his hand at the same time. Well, maybe punch him first. He changed his stance a bit, rocking sideways to relieve some of the . “How did you know about Afghanistan?”

John thought he caught a hint of a self-satisfied smirk on the other man’s face. “I’ve got my eye on a nice little place in central London,” he said, not taking the bait John had so sweetly laid out for him. “Together we should be able to afford it. We’ll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o’clock. Sorry, got to dash, I think I’ve left my riding crop in the mortuary.”

John felt his pulse quicken, just like in Ella’s office before. He could feel himself on the verge of an outburst. He had spent months being ignored and trod over, and if he didn’t get control soon, he knew he was going to snap.

“Is that it?” He barked, unable to keep the bite out of his voice. The man was lured back into the room. John felt a pump of adrenaline rush down his spine. He sounded like _Captain_ Watson, and it felt good.

“Is that what?”

“We’ve only just met and we’re going to go look at a flat?” He was squared up, ready to land a blow if need be.

This time it was the other man who looked at Mike in a what-is-wrong-with-this-person glance of disbelief. “Problem?”

John smiled ferally at Mike in return. He rather liked the little shift in power of the room. “We don’t know a thing about each other. I don’t know where we’re meeting. I don’t even know your name.” There was challenge in his voice, and it didn’t go unnoticed. For a flickering moment, John had the man as off balance as he had felt earlier. He could feel a stirring in his chest somewhere that John could vaguely remember as a feeling of pride.

Then the man’s eyes swept over him, sweeping all of his newly found dignity away in an instant. This man, this insane, brilliant man, tore out the very essence of John, placed it delicately on the lab’s sterile table tops, and shredded it into tattered ribbons. He wasn’t cruel, no... he was right, and he knew it. He smirked, winked with a click of his cheek, gave a shout over to Mike, “Afternoon,” and blew through the door, effectively taking the wind that had been in John’s sails out with him.

He had torn John apart in just under three minutes of meeting him. He had known things about John that he had always thought were closely guarded. He had known about Harry, about Clara, about his psychosis, his military career, and even, somehow, about his therapist.

The only thing he had miscalculated by any measurable degree was Harry. Even then, John could take no satisfaction in his not knowing that Harry was his sister. Honestly, if he had known Harry was female John would have assumed he was some sort of psychic or devil... and John didn’t believe in psychics or devils. He had the unsettling feeling in his gut that he was beginning to believe in Sherlock Holmes, and John Watson wasn’t one to believe in anyone, not anymore.

He felt like he had been prepared in one of the lower rooms by an adept student with a fresh cadaver. He had to swallow against his now dry throat. 

John looked to his friend, hoping he too would be gaping at the man that had just strolled away with all of John’s secrets secured in his breast pocket. Mike, however, was watching John with humor spread across his face. “Yep... he’s always like that.”

John considered being angry, but couldn’t help but be impressed. After a few beats he asked, “Always?” 

Mike smiled broadly, “I told you he was spiky.”

“...and you think living with him is a good idea?” The edge to his voice was sharpening slightly.

Mike hefted himself out of his seat and glanced at his watch, knowing his class would start soon. “I think it’s a better idea than you leaving London.” John flinched, wondering if Mike knew what that particular euphemism meant. “What would you even do with yourself? Be a GP in the country somewhere? Not for a man like you.”

John nearly said exactly what he had been planning to do with himself, but thought better of it. Mike had a hard enough time keeping his mouth shut with inane gossip; he didn’t want to imagine what he would do with an admission of suicidal thoughts. “Well, men like me don’t have therapists either,” he bit out, sharply admitting to what Sherlock had inferred instead.

“Janey and I have a therapist! Half of London has a therapist! And the other half probably needs one, don’t they? Doesn’t mean we up and go, right?” He asked brightly, not knowing that the ‘up and go’ was analogous in John’s mind with suicide. "And anyway," Mike continued, "don't let him get under your skin. He’s like that with everyone. I about popped him one when he went to work on me, but he wasn't wrong." Mike smiled at the memory, “Said I was a food addict and Janey was thinking of leaving.” He shook his head with humor, “now I’m on a diet, and we’re in therapy. Thank you, Sherlock Holmes.”

John gave a quiet hum of laughter. As much as Mike was trying to relieve the tension, there was just too much of himself laid out under the flourescent lights for him to be comfortable. He was still reeling from the cutting and alarmingly accurate dissection he'd just undergone. 

"Well, class," Mike said breaking John from his thoughts. "Hang around if you like, I'll be done in an hour or so. We could catch up over cakes in the cafeteria, or there’s a buffet two blocks from here. Supposed to be good, just opened about a week ago." His enthusiasm was charming, but John was tiring out quickly.

"Ah, no. I'll be going but, thanks. Today was, well... today was not what I expected."

Mike held his hand out to John who accepted after he shuffled his cane around. "John Watson,” Mike mused in near reverence, “after all these years and here you are, just like in the old days. London is a better place knowing you’re in it.” Mike clapped his meaty hand over John’s shoulder, “I’ll be hearing from you tomorrow? Maybe get a drink after you see the flat?”

“Yeah...” John swallowed thickly around the words, “tomorrow.”

“Well, Cheers then!” Mike called over his shoulder as he hurried out of the room.

“Yeah... cheers,” John said distantly to the now empty lab. 

_Tomorrow._

Tomorrow was a concept John hadn’t even considered when he had awoken that morning. It was as distant as a decade, as sequestered as a century, and as tangible as time itself. It simply hadn’t existed to John Watson until only a few moments ago. _Tomorrow, seven o’clock. Sherlock Holmes. 221B Baker Street._

He looked at his watch. By all the accounting and planning he had done, he should have been dead for eight minutes. 

The walk back to his flat was a blur. John’s mind was replaying the conversation he’d just endured. He thought of all the pithy remarks he should have said, all the ways he could have been more remarkable or biting. He wished he could have gone in with something, some kind of knowledge of the man, just to beat him- or hell, even come close to matching him, at his own game. 

It wasn’t until John sat heavily on his bed that he even realized he was home. 

He shifted, reached into his pocket, and retrieved his mobile. Yes, it was unethical, it was an invasion of privacy, and not something John would have done in normal circumstances; but Sherlock Holmes, like John’s curiosity in that moment, was not normal. 

He tabbed through the menus as quickly as he could. He didn’t know a lot about his new phone, but there had to be a way to see what he had written _Messages: Received:_ No. _Messages: Sent: If brother has green ladder, arrest brother. SH_

John read the message over again, his intrigue with the man steadily growing.

The computer was waiting for him impatiently. It seemed to be calling to him like a siren from across the tiny room. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, John raised himself off the bed, took the few steps to his desk, and sat at his computer with a new purpose. He would not compose morose notes or work on his macabre blog. No, he didn’t even think of those things. His mind was solely occupied by the mysterious man in a coat.

He typed the name Sherlock Holmes in the search engine and paused. All he had to do was stroke the enter key, but John was hesitant. Maybe this was going too far. Googling him had to be overstepping one boundary or another. He flashed back to the raking over the man had given him in the lab. _Well, fuck it._ John hit the key with a little more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary and watched as a litany of hyperlinks filled the screen.

A website entitled _The Science of Deduction_ sat proudly on top of the heap of results. John pursed his lips for a moment, again thinking he was going too far before clicking on the link. _Well,_ he rationalized, _he did put it on the internet, so I guess it’s fair game..._

John had hoped to find some insight on Sherlock Holmes when he clicked the link. He wanted an explanation of him, a history of him. John wanted to have as clear a picture of him as he seemed to have of John. What he was faced with, however, was not anything so personal as all of that. No, the website he had found was written like a thesis, not a journal. And just like before, John felt a pang of annoyance toward the man, like he had somehow done this on purpose just to infuriate him.

To say the website was dry would be an understatement. The screen was white, the text was black, and the photos were mostly extreme close ups of dirt, ash, dust, and footprints. John clicked around on the site, but there was nothing about the enigmatic man he’d met earlier that day. There were only a few hints from when he would mention of himself in the text:

_I’ve found the best way of testing pH levels in the field is with a modified testing probe of my own creation. No other such device exists..._

_Other than myself, everyone disregards the dust line of a person's home upon entry. There is no better way to know one’s habits than observing their routines in such a manner. While it should be obvious, it is often overlooked..._

_Another often ignored opportunity for deduction is in observing the physicality of the subject in question. It is an extraordinarily simple and effective way to understand someone if you know where to look. An airline pilot is belied by the left thumb, a secretary by the wrist, a software designer by the tie (usually dingy, and worn sloppily in a Single Windsor knot)..._

_I have honed the only system in the identification of tobacco ash. How I was the first person to put in this effort should shame all law enforcement officials in a deep and degrading manner. Nonetheless, my findings are listed below..._

To say that John was shocked by the man’s arrogance would be inaccurate. John may not have invented The Science of Deduction, but it was clear from the moment he had opened his mouth to him, that Sherlock Holmes was a narcissist. What did shock the naturally reserved John, was the joy Holmes seemed to take in preening himself so publicly. 

He continued perusing the website, hoping to find a nugget of information amid the rambling on about deductions, clues, and the idiocy of a certain Detective Inspector he only referred to as “L”. 

After a solid thirty minutes of reading through his website, John cracked his neck to relieve some tension from sitting for so long. He knew he should just do his stretches and get to bed, but his mind was still clouded over with the mystery of Sherlock Holmes. There had to be something more on him, something with more substance.

When he went back to the search engine, typed his name in again. This time he ignored The Science of Deduction and skipped down to a list of news articles. _Child Genius Solves Murder, Youngest Student in Cambridge History to Attend in Fall, Cambridge Whiz Kid Moving to Oxford Campus in Spring, Where Are They Now: Genius Elites,_ and finally, _22 Arrests for 22 Year Old Holmes._

Finally, he thought, something more than dust and ash to hold onto.

He greedily clicked the first link, all previous inhibitions of privacy long forgotten. A bright white 404 error message nearly blinded him in his darkened flat.

_Dammit._

He went back and methodically tried them all, but they were all dead ends.

The Cambridge and Oxford searches for Sherlock were also empty. He tried going through the Yard’s page next, and again found nothing. Bart’s had no information on the man since he wasn’t officially employed there, and when John tried pulling him up on interpol, he found himself to be equally disappointed. It was infuriating.

John sat back with a furrowed brow and absentmindedly wiped his palms on his trousers. He wanted to know more, needed to know more about the so-called genius he had met earlier in the day. There was only one person he knew who could help him, and Mike always was too chatty for his own good. 

The laptop was closed with a sharp snap of determination. He would talk to Mike in the morning and hopefully uncover everything there was to know about Sherlock Holmes. As John brushed his teeth he thought about what he would ask about him; when John changed into his night clothes he tried deducing the answers to those questions himself; and just as John was about to settle into bed properly, he wondered at what Sherlock was doing in his corner of the city.

And as John slept for the first time without a thought of the war in his mind, another man on the other side of London was wide awake. He was sitting at his own computer in his own darkened flat, just like John had done before. _The Personal Blog of John H. Watson_ had earned its first hit.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John gets darker.... is that even possible? *Why do I love torturing him like this?*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been too long, friends. I am so sorry for the MASSIVE amount of time you have all had to wait. Not that I am trying to make excuses, but I have had a few things that have eaten up my time. I am on a one day hiatus from work and pre-production for another film festival we are prepping for (wish me luck---48Hour Film Project is going to be a BEAST). Anyway, here is chapter six, and chapter seven is getting a final polish tonight. Hope you like it. 
> 
> Yours, Roth

He awoke to sunlight pouring in from his only window. It warmed him, reminded him of heat in Afghanistan. He blinked, looking around flat in confusion. He was expecting to find himself in the barracks to which he had grown so accustomed. He never woke from nightmares in Afghanistan. He lived them, and that was enough. Some of the other soldiers would wake gasping or jolt upright with thoughts of what they had seen, but never John. He had somehow been able to push those dreams away, knowing they needed him to be strong.

In the months since his return, he had tried everything to keep the nightmares at bay, hoping he could awake as gently in London as he had in Afghanistan. Naively, he thought it would comfort him; but now that he expected nightmares, waking without them was much more frightening. He draped an arm over his eyes, blocking out the light and felt the all too familiar frustration of his new life press in on him. He couldn’t win for losing.

When he did move his arm, he saw a blinking light on the bedside table. He picked up his phone and watched the indicator switch on and off for a few beats. He finally unlocked the screen. A voicemail. 

“Hello John, this is Ella. I usually leave my secretary to make calls, but I wanted to be the one to tell you... In light of what happened, of what I saw, I took the liberty of leaving a prescription for you at the pharmacy you have listed with your papers. It’s something to help with your anxiety and your episodes. If you’d care to reach me, you have my number, if not, I’ll see you tomorrow and we can discuss it then.” There was a jostling of the receiver before she clicked it down and the line went dead. 

He pulled the phone back and stared at it in shock. Then he played the message again. 

“Hello John, this is Ella...”

and again.

“...in light of what happened, of what I saw...”

and again.

“...something to help with your anxiety and your episodes...”

He took a slow steadying breath and rubbed his face, like it would somehow erase the part of John that needed medication to be normal. One bullet. Just one bullet and his shoulder, his leg, his manhood, and his mind were all broken. He wondered what one more bullet could accomplish. 

John found himself standing in the middle of the room. His gun was held under his right arm, the empty magazine in his right hand, and ten rounds were laid in a pile on his left palm. He picked through them and rolled one bullet, The Bullet, between his thumb and forefinger. 

He secured it in the magazine.

John’s phone buzzed against the tabletop, startling him into dropping the ammunition on the floor.

“Dammit.” 

The alarm he had set the night before was buzzing incessantly. Call Mike. Call Mike. Call Mike.

He slid the indicator over, turned off the alarm, and opened his contact list. There were only four numbers. Clara, Ella’s Office, Harry, and now, Mike. 

There was a moment, a fleeting moment, when John considered just ignoring the alarm and not calling Mike and not finding out about Sherlock and not meeting him at the flat... but as quickly as those thoughts tumbled through his brain, they vanished. Not finding out about Sherlock was simply not going to happen. He had too many questions that a bullet could not answer. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, Mike... it’s John.”

“John!” Mike exclaimed, “Did you already see the flat? How was it?”

John blinked a few times, “No. No, I wanted to talk to you.” He cleared his throat, not sure how to present this, “I wanted to ask you a few things about... about Sherlock.”

“Oh, got under your skin then, did he? He’s good at that,” Mike said with a chuckle.

“Yeah. Um... can I come by? I just have a few questions.” John’s face pinched as he bent down to the floor, but he managed to keep his voice light and calm.

“Of course you can! I have class at four and a few papers, but I’m mostly in the office during the mid-day. We could grab a bite to eat if we time it right. What did you want to know anyway? It might not be worth the trip.”

John was crouched awkwardly, phone wedged between his ear and shoulder, one hand holding the desk for support and the other gathering up the ammo from the floor. “Anything you know, really. Who he is, where he comes from, how you met him, that kind of thing. Nothing too serious... I just want to know what I can about him.”

Mike’s chair creaked when he sat back, John could hear it on his end of the line. “I met him a few years ago. We’ve become friendly, but I wouldn’t call us chums or anything like that. No, he mostly keeps to himself, orders Molly around a bit too much in my opinion, and works like a dog. If you want to come in, feel free... but I can’t promise I’d be much help, I don’t really know more than that.”

“Anything, anything is better than going there with nothing on him.”

John could practically hear Mike trying to work out the meaning behind that. “Ya’know he didn’t mean to offend you. He’s just--”

“Well, he did offend me!” John burst out before realizing he was yelling into the phone. He continued on as gently as he could, trying to convince himself that Ella was wrong about needing medication for his outbursts, “...and I’m not going to let that happen again. Not unprepared.” He began popping the ammo back into the magazine with violent, unerring precision.

There was a few beats of silence before Mike finally spoke, “You really did change over there, didn’t you?”

John looked at the cartridges of bullets in his hand. “I can be there in half an hour.”

Mike swallowed audibly over the phone, “Yeah. Sure. Whenever you like.”

John clicked the phone off with not so much as a goodbye thrown Mike’s way. He hastily finished reloading the bullets into the gun and threw it back in the drawer with a thud. His drill sergeant would have been mortified. That thought gave John a pause to smile as he went about his morning routine: shower, shave, breakfast, Bart’s. 

Mike’s office was a thoroughly ramshackle room that more resembled a university dorm than a professor’s office. There were bags of crisps and half drunk diet sodas interspersed with empty cans of regular soda. Papers were piled in tower like stacks that Mike assured him had ‘a system’ where nothing was lost.

He was sitting with his hands folded over his stomach for a few seconds, John felt like he was being sized up and didn’t much appreciate it. “Well, go on,” Mike finally said leaning forward a bit, “what do you want to know.”

John swallowed then, realizing that maybe putting Mike on the spot wasn’t as normal as he had convinced himself the night before. “When did he come here?”

“A couple years back, September, I think. He came in requesting use of the labs.”

“Is that standard? To just give him permission like that?”

Mike adjusted, “Ah, no... he was convincing though. He answered all my questions amicably and presented me recommendations from his professors at Cambridge and Oxford. He was nice, though looking back, I think he was putting on a bit. ”

“And that’s all it takes?”

“I don’t want this to turn you off to him... but we,” Mike adjusted in his seat, “we received a letter. Two days before he ever got in touch with us. It was from the government. It said it was a matter of national security that Sherlock Holmes be given full access when he requested it, so we let him.”

“So he works for the government?” John asked, a little taken aback, his own work for the government had landed him with a crap pension, not letters of recommendation.

“Not so much as I can tell... he usually is working on things for the yard, or sometimes for himself. Did you see the website? Our labs stunk of cigarettes for weeks after he brought in all those ash samples.”

John wasn’t going to admit that he’d scoured it over, twice. Instead he said, with a bit of confusion, “...but the letter from the government, it was real?”

“Signed by the Prime Minister, himself.”

“The Prime Minister?” John said gobsmacked.

Mike gave a nod.

“Of Britain?” His eyebrows were ascending to his hairline.

Mike’s smile broadened.

“You’re sure it’s real?” His voice was pitched high in shock.

“Well we didn’t think it was at first. We’d hung it in the lounge for a laugh but then we got a call too...” Mike’s voice dropped pitch as though he expected someone was listening in, “Said we should let him use the labs. Said they’d make it difficult for us ‘round here if we didn’t.”

John leaned forward, putting his elbows to his knees and leaning at the waist. He knew how Mike loved to tell a good story.

“I’d just been put in charge of the labs at the time. It was a good pay raise, better hours, that kind of thing so I was glad to take it. Then, I got this call, direct to my line and...” Mike struggled for a second to find the words, “It was, well, it was all a bit eerie. Said I had a lot to lose if I didn’t comply, and not just the job. They’d known that I’d bought a car with the extra money coming in, and that I had been looking for places closer to Bart’s... said they’d hate for Janey or Hugo to get caught up in this...” He had a picture of his wife and dog on the desk by his phone. “So, I let Sherlock do as he pleased.” 

“So they threatened you? And you just gave in?” John said with a little too much military sharpness. He thought, if put in that same position that he would die first, but then, John had nothing to lose.

“I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?” Mike defensively whined. “I couldn’t bear it if I was just being stubborn and got them into some kind of trouble. Don’t get me wrong, I was worried about letting him in here at first, but it’s been years and he hasn’t so much as broken a beaker.”

“Did you ever ask him about it? About how he knows them?”

“I tried once... but he wasn’t too keen on the subject. I said, ‘How’d you manage a letter from the PM?’ and he said, all offended, ‘I didn’t,’ so I said, ‘Who did?’, and he said, ‘The most dangerous person I know.’ Then I heard him giving a lashing to someone on the phone about ten minutes after that. Told him to stay out of his affairs and he didn’t need any help from him, and all that... it was weird, but,” Mike shrugged with a sigh, “that’s Sherlock. You’ll see.”

“So then what?”

“So then nothing. He just started showing up at all hours. He mostly hangs around the mortuary and the labs. He spends a fair amount of time with Molly but that’s it. No one else really ever interacts with him. He trusts me though. I don’t know if he likes me all that much, but he listens at least, which is more than I can say for the others.” 

John sat back with his shoulders squared. “So he’s friends with the Prime Minister and an amateur chemist with an oversized ego.”

Mike smirked, “That about sums him up, yeah.”

John puzzled for a second, “...but what about his hobbies? I mean he has to do something more than work in the lab, right?”

“Beats me. As far as I can tell he’s either here or on a case. He’s never mentioned anything else, just the violin, I guess?”

John suddenly imagined Sherlock sat down with a violin against his chin, his fingers cutting fresh calluses against taut string, and a well worn bow wheedling out a tune.

“What about that other stuff you said?” John tried desperately to sound casual. He wasn’t sure why the question popped into his head, but it was there; and as he tried to push away the sound of a violin floating over the buzz of London streets, Mike responded.

“What other stuff?”

John shifted in his chair, not exactly knowing how to phrase the question, “You said he was gay... I mean... how do you know?”

Mike laughed a little, “Well I don’t know. I just get the impression... he’s dodgy around Molly and I’ve never heard him say anything about any women... not that I go fishing for details or anything. He’s just... well, I dunno, he just seems it is all. He dresses well, he’s tidy so far as I can tell. What did you think when you met him?”

John ignored that bit, “Well would you live with him if you had the chance?”

“I would,” Mike said honestly. “I’ve seen Sherlock just about everyday for the last two years. I think the both of us spend more time in this building than in either of our homes, and I’m no worse off because of it. I’ll probably still see him more than you do.” 

John gave a lopsided smile that hid a bubble of disappointment. He didn’t want to have an invisible flatmate, he wanted to know everything there was to know about him. Mike was trying to be helpful, reassuring, maybe even comforting with the idea that Sherlock wouldn’t be around that much... but John didn’t want the mystery of him to linger, he wanted to figure him out, just like Sherlock had figured John. 

“I told Janey about running into you yesterday,” Mike said, interrupting John’s thoughts. “She said she’d love to have you over sometime.” 

John’s eyes flickered to the picture on the desk. Janey was pretty in an unassuming, quiet way... and if she’d have Mike, then maybe John would have a chance at her. The reptilian brain perked up at the thought of this, but John kept his tone light and even, and tried to push the flashing image of what she’d look like naked away.

“Probably wants the dirt on me from back in the day!” Mike’s chair squeaked again as he leaned back, this time lost in his memories.

John had more than few embarrassing stories about Mike. “Like the time you ate all the pot brownies after finals?” John smirked.

Mike let out a single booming laugh, “HA! Oh god, that was a night!” 

John nodded in agreement, a touch of a smile pulling at his eyes. He hoped he looked like someone who was having a good time. 

“Well anyway, you just you remember I have stories on you too,” he said with a still thoroughly amused grin, “and I’m sure Sherlock would lend an ear if you two end up together!”

John suddenly sobered, a coldness reaching his eyes, “If we what?” 

“You know,” Mike’s tried to keep his smile up, “as flatmates. I have more than a few memories of you from school too.” John continued to look at Mike with suspicion. “Really, that’s all I meant. Not that you two would...”

John glanced back down at the picture of Mike’s wife. To Mike, he looked like he was envying their domestic bliss; but in all actuality, John was imagining that he was strong enough to pin her against a wall, her legs over his forearms as he rammed into her. Violently.

John pinched the bridge of his nose with a shaking hand. He hadn’t felt a single stir of sexuality in months, and now it was rearing it’s head over a woman he had no interest in other than to teach Mike a lesson about just how straight John really was. Not good. Not even a bit good. Mike asked him something about a headache, and John responded weakly in the affirmative, not really listening to his friend.

Mike coughed awkwardly, trying to get John’s attention again, “Well, anyway... I hope I was a help.”

“Yes. Yes, anything is better than nothing.” He smiled up at his friend a little pinched, almost worried that he would be able to see the dirty thoughts. 

Mike collected his teaching satchel and John stood up, leaning on the cane for support. Once they were out of his office and Mike was locking the door he said, “I can offer one bit of advice concerning Sherlock Holmes.” Mike pocketed his key and adjusted the strap on his shoulder. “Don’t let him get to you.” 

_Easier said than done._ "Thanks, I'll do my best." He clapped Mike on the shoulder and shook his hand in salutations. 

There were a few hours to kill between leaving Mike's office and arriving at 221B. He had time to kill... and going back to his place was not an option if he wanted to _only_ kill the time. He considered going round the chemists for his medication. The brutal image of Janey getting fucked raw for revenge was reason enough for him to reconsider the need for drugs. 

A fantasy flashed unbidden through his mind. He was pressing her against the tile wall in the Stamford ensuite. _You have to be quiet,_ he breathed into her ear as he pressed himself between her thighs. His hand clamped over her mouth in an attempt to mute her moaning. If they weren’t careful, Mike would hear them rutting like animals against the bathroom wall. It turned John’s stomach unpleasantly. 

He had never considered sleeping with someones wife before. Well, maybe his sister’s; and Oh God, that thought did nothing to make John feel better about himself in that instant. He wasn’t even sure of what had brought it up in him. Ella would say something about it being a manifestation of the frustration he felt toward Mike being happy, successful, married, etc., which had turned into psychotic fantasies of his wife. Control fantasies. _Dangerous_ fantasies. Fantasies of things John had been confident about when he was at Bart’s all those years before. 

John just thought he was going mad from sexual frustration and that even Janey would be a fine participant if she were willing... and in the darkest corner of his mind he thought he'd have her even if she was not. ...and it was in those thoughts that he was scared. Those desperate savage thoughts. It scared him more than his own suicide. Hell, it justified it. Maybe he should get the medication... or maybe he should just get a leg over with the next person he encountered.

Unrelated though John was convinced the topics were, he began thinking about Sherlock. It gave him an outlet when he puzzled over the man. 

John was intelligent. He was a doctor, a soldier, a strategist, and graduated both secondary and university with high marks. John liked mysteries and puzzled, he even considered himself well read. This quandary, this _Sherlock Quandary_ , however had John stumped. 

Sherlock had him sized up and pinned down within minutes of meeting. John had spent the better part of two days contemplating him and came up only with wisps of who the man was. He had attended Oxford and Cambridge, dropped out to pursue a career with the Yard that somehow involved the Bart's labs, which he had access to only through a connection to the PM. The facts were substantial, but the how and why simply eluded him. 

He was at the entryway of Bart’s when he was given reason to pause. A sign was casually beckoning him down a corridor he had walked years before. There was a single arrow placed under the word ‘Mortuary’. _He mostly hangs around the mortuary... He spends a fair amount of time with Molly..._ Molly. Mortuary. Answers. Right.

**Author's Note:**

> What do you think? Leave me a note! I can be flattered into updating quicker. ;)


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